Ledoux 1

Ben Ledoux
Ms. Lindgren
Creative Non-Fiction Period 6
8 April 2016
Youre Filled With Determination
I had gotten less than four hours of sleep that entire week. My eyes, already bloodshot
themselves, had developed dark, blue rings around them; like they had sunken into my skull.
Either by some error of my own, or through forces beyond my control, it was the final day I had
to work. It could have just been a simple PowerPoint, I could have chosen the easy route and just
done the project as it was assigned. Instead I had to make the choice to go the extra mile and
over complicate things.
Glancing to my left, I attempted to find and eliminate the source of my distraction. The
rebeccapurple light emanating from the display of my atomic, Sony DREAM MACHINE
alarm clock had dimmed to a dull amethyst. The brief change in the darkness of the room
marked the changing of the hour louder than church bells. Realizing that, despite my best efforts
as a child, I did not gain the superpower to control the flow of time, and how, though I played the
song of time on numerous occasion, my replica ocarina did not have the same magical powers as
the original, I granted myself a brief a moment to come to terms with the crushing futility of my
position.
As I turned towards my classmates, the pale fluorescent lights of the biology room
flickered, confirming my suspicion that everyone had just dawned the same hollow expression as
myself. It was busy work: an unnecessary distraction with few guidelines just to keep us
occupied for the remaining month of school. As our attention waned, the hazy summer heat

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became more and more apparent as the hour hand on the nearby clock seemed to slow to an ants
crawl. One by one, our eyes glossed over as each of us stumbled into our respective daydreams.
As the normal scuffle of backpacks and scraping of chairs began to arise, I slowly broke free of
my stupor and returned to the waking world with a brilliant idea.
I spend my lunches in the ATL, Ive been studying this stuff for a year. Making a game
would be fun.
Oh Past-Ben, you nave idiot.
With a quick snap back to reality, I realized that my position could only be made worse
by taking time to dwell on these thoughts. Massaging the weariness out of my eyes, I returned
my focus to the laptop screen sitting in the foreground of my bleak landscape.
Music was blasting in my ears. Just quiet enough to not awake my slumbering parents in
the room adjacent, but loud enough that it would be impossible for me to accidently drift off to
sleep. The music itself was actually a single song, Bartholomew by The Silent Comedy, set on
repeat for hours on end. The near-spoken lyrics and repetitive base drumbeat reminded me of the
clich scene featured in every war movie. Where the protagonist and his brothers in arms are in
basic training, marching up the mountain, singing in beat to the pounding of their boots. Every
beat was a click on the track pad or line of code. The chorus, the symbolic culmination of all the
game developers, my brothers and sisters in arms, working overtime alongside me, vibrated
through my bones.
Despite all the long hours into the nights and the effort exerted on my part, the game was,
for lack of a better term, utter sh*t, and I knew this. I knew it since a particularly frustrating 1:00
am four nights prior. I had beaten myself up over it, cringed whenever I tested it, and improved

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what little I could in the time given, but nothing I could do would change the fact that the. So
why bother then?
Well, Ive always had issues interacting with people. Unlike programing or math, social
situations and small talk just dont come naturally to me. Its like putting a Latin student in a
Spanish class: sure they may understand some of whats going on, but in the end, theyre
speaking two different languages. This is not for a lack of trying on my part though, I do truly
want to communicate with people, but I just never could.
But when you pour hours and hours of your life into something, when you put everything
you are into a single entity, something incredible happens. When you give and sacrifice so much
of yourself in order to create a game, the computer evolves from a simple machine into a sort of
vessel. Pieces of me reside within the game, we share the same flaws and qualities. As you have
trouble controlling the character, I cant seem to ever grasp control of my life. As you try to wrap
your mind around the confusing level design, I try desperately to comprehend the world around
me. As you look and critique the poor, the crude design of the game, I look and critique myself,
which, like the game, often appears to be a low effort attempt and gives the sense of being poorly
put together. The music, all from specific video games, tells you more about my interests. The
topic matter, the inside jokes, and just the fact that I attempted to make a game, all of it paints a
picture of who I am.
Bartholomew wasnt keeping me awake for hours past midnight, the threat of a bad
project grade wasnt motivating my actions, and it sure as hell wasnt the idea of creating a good
game that drove me, because I knew in the end it would have flaws. No, it wasnt any of those
things.

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My want my need for communication: its what filled me with determination. Thats
why making video games is important to me. It allows me to connect with people on an
emotional level without the need to directly interact with them.
They probably didnt realize it, but only a few hours after my internal lamentations of
futility, my classmates learned more about me in ten-minutes than if they had eaten lunch with
me every day that year.